Friday, October 31, 2008

Assclowns of the Week #72: Trick or Treat Election Day Edition

For a nation renowned for its instant gratification, we have over the last eight years been subjected to some protracted, drawn-out shit: The 2000 presidential election results. The last three and a half innings of the World Series. A year and a half between seasons of Lost. And a general election cycle that, perhaps not coincidentally, has lasted for exactly as long as an elephant’s gestation.

But the election will finally be over this Tuesday (if Diebold and ES&S are magnanimous enough to sit this one out and give us the appearance of a workable democracy. Yeah, I thought that was a good one, too).

But as huge as is the news of the election and the emergence of our nation’s first African American president (if Diebold and ES&S are magnanimous enough to sit this one out and give us the appearance of a workable democracy. Sorry, that joke gets funnier every time I write it), we had other assclownery afoot this past week that was both related and unrelated to the hacker Olympics presidential election.

There was Sarah Palin (10) for shedding her clothes and calling the GOP on reverse rape; Let’s not forget Ted Stevens (3, 9) who perhaps should’ve nominated his home for renovation on This Old House rather than relying on oil companies to do the work for free and on the sly; skinheads (6) for attempting to bring back the days of the dapper criminals and Bill O'Reilly (1) for responding to mild criticism with police action.

It's only fitting that elections take place right after Halloween and this general election is providing us with a bumper crop of Republican ghouls and goblins. So come get your goodies, kiddies. Pay no mind to the Republican assclowns on either side of the walkway and much, much more!

10) Sarah Palin

Sure, one cannot overestimate or underestimate Sarah Palin, a latter-day Sally Fields in desperate need of anti-cult deprogramming. But it bears pointing out, Palin’s pathetic excuse for wearing $150,000 worth of clothes and makeup that was cruelly foisted off on her by the shopping zombies of the Republican National Committee. Because, according to St. Sarah, she didn’t buy the clothes and never knew that they cost more than what 85% of Americans make in a year.

Oh, how the RNC must’ve bruised her delicate skin as they held her down day after day while perfectly applying that makeup and pulling those expensive duds over her limbs and torso. Only weeks after the flap over her threads erupted, Palin appeared at a rally in blue jeans reportedly bought from her “favorite consignment store in Anchorage, Alaska” singing “I’m a Redneck Woman.”

The amount of freebies that Mr. Stevens accepted to renovate his Alaska ‘chalet’ is significant, but the individual components -- a Viking grill, a vibrating Shiatsu massage lounger, a five-foot steel sculpture of migrating salmon -- underscore the petty needlessness of Mr. Stevens’s crime.

It’s kind of ironic that Stevens, unlike bigger thinkers like Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham, who have been convicted and indicted for much larger sums of money, was convicted of corruption charges for failing to disclose a relatively paltry $250,000 in gifts and home renovations. It’s ironic considering that Stevens, in his three dozen years in the Senate, steered countless tens of billions of dollars in worthless earmarks Alaska’s way.

It brings to mind Ollie North, who was smack dab in the middle of the Iran-Contra scandal, getting himself snow tires. It almost makes one pine for the likes of Cheney, DeLay and Cunningham, crooks you could admire for the sheer audacious scale of their rapacity.

Stevens' piker ambitions are also kind of reminiscent of Sarah Palin’s greatest legacy as mayor of the “city” of Wasilla: a hockey rink and adjacent property that was built before obtaining unchallenged rights to the land. Oh, and it’s somehow connected to who built the $552,000 Palin Manor.

But there's hope, yet, Stevens fans! Because Teddy and his lawyer are asking Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to investigate misconduct on the part of his fellow Republicans, the prosecutors who'd tried Stevens' case.

OK, the irony is just too obvious and heavy-handed. Republicans are plainly going for laughs at this point...

8) Right Wingers

It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that Barack Obama this year has been the wild hyacinth to the Curly Howards of the Republican Party. As the Konservative Kalliope of Kraziness reaches its inevitable crescendo, not too many wingnuts stand out in terms of original assclownery.

To wit, Bill Cunningham for claiming that poor people are poor not because they’ve been victimized by the GOP’s Big Gubmint but “because they lack values, morals, and ethics.” Of course, Cunningham didn't explain the likes of Duke Cunningham (spiritually related), Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney and the Nazi-loving Bush clan.

Dennis Prager sniffed that the concept of equality is a European ideal and not an American one. Which is an assertion proved by pointing to the part of the US Constitution that says, "All men are created equal." Which is, of course, a document written and endorsed by wealthy slave owners who apparently never thought to include black people and women in that lofty ideal.

Then there was still inexplicably nationally televised future prison shower bait Tom DeLay, who told Chris Matthews on MSNBC that he had Obama “tagged… as a Marxist months ago.” Gee, Bug Boy, what took you so long? Sarah Palin had him tagged as a terrorist back when he was eight years old and the Weathermen were active.

Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo! Moe, Larry, tickle me!

7) Ashley Todd

McCain campaign volunteer Ashley Todd thought it would be a boon to her man’s campaign if she falsely claimed to be jumped and robbed of $60 by a black man who would then carve a backwards “B” on her face (as if, I dunno, it was self-inflicted in a mirror) because of her McCain bumper sticker.

There’s a sickening double racism at work in this amateurish stunt (smudged mascara for an unswollen black eye?). Firstly, this is just one of many, many examples of antebellum-era rednecks who simply cannot stand the idea of a black man getting in the White House, even if it means indirectly sabotaging their own man’s campaign. Secondly, in creating out of thin air a black assailant, it perpetuates, with the aid of an ever-compliant MSM that generally features minorities only when they’re the alleged perpetrators rather than the victims, the myth that black people generally carry out these crimes against right proper white people.

We learned that much when Charles Stuart shot his pregnant wife in Boston and Susan Smith in South Carolina drowned her three young sons. And while we’re on the subject of these fine white salts of the earth…

6) Neonazis

…Tennessee also made the news in another Obama-related item. Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman are about to bring back an era when even criminals knew how to dress and dress well. Or, they would’ve if they hadn’t been stupid enough to discuss their nation-wide killing spree on the Internet.

Included in the itinerary: Murdering 88 people, decapitating 14 African Americans, speeding toward Barack Obama in a car with shotguns ablaze and wearing white tuxedos and top hats in the process.My God, we haven’t seen such fashion sense in criminals since these guys!

5) Rick Davis

“The most amazingly bankrupt line I’ve seen in this campaign is Barack Obama campaign’s repeated attempt to link John McCain to President Bush. John McCain held the Bush administrations feet the fire more than anyone else for the first four years of the administration.” --- McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.

Sometimes that was true. But note, while he was talking and gargling Koolaid at the same time like a one man ventriloquist act that Davis ignored the last four years, during which, after a brief, faux rebellion, McCain eventually let Bush have his Military Tribunal Bill, came to embrace Bush’s tax cuts for the Haves and Have Mores, supported offshore drilling, the perpetuation of the war in Iraq and, by his own admission, “voted with the president over 90% of the time.”Yeah, he sure held his feet to the fire, all right. Maybe that’s why Bush was doing this while waiting for McCain so he could give him his endorsement.

4) Michele Bachmann

Call her Katherine Harris 2.0

Last Thursday in a radio debate with her Democratic rival Elwyn Tinklenberg, Michele Bachmann proved how well she knows the vox populi in Minnesota's 6th congressional district. Addressing her comments to Chris Matthews on Hardball on the 17th about suggesting an investigation into Barack Obama and other "liberal" and "unAmerican" members of Congress, Bachman said,

BACHMANN: Well Gary, that is not an issue that has been a part of the campaign, and it’s not a part of the campaign, and it’s not what people are interested in. If they were, that’s something we’d be talking about. But it isn’t what people have been asking me about.

Q: Nobody is concerned about your comments on Hardball?

BACHMANN: Not when I’ve been out. … The only people who bring that up are the media. It’s not the people.

But Minnesota Public Radio's website tells us,

But the controversy that Bachmann sees as a non-issue resulted in a financial windfall for Tinklenberg. Donations to his campaign have totaled nearly $2 million in the past two weeks.

Then there's also the very existence of CensureBachmann.com, an online petition that, last time I checked, had gathered 56,722 signatures.

But FDMIYAR: Facts Don't Matter If You're a Republican.

3) Ted Stevens

"...and I want you, Spidey, to then bury Begich's body in the AWNR..."

In case you're wondering how Teddy is doing on his own campaign trail, here's a transcript (albeit horribly spelled) of his last debate with Democrat Paul Begich, the Anchorage mayor who's going to kick Stevens' ass out of the Senate. Among the lowlights:

He stated twice that he has not been convicted of anything, despite having been convicted just days ago on seven counts of making false statements on financial disclosure forms. Yes, Stevens, a senior lawmaker, thinks that an appeals process suspends a multiple conviction.

Then there was this:

Tracy: Is Gov. Palin qualified, sir, as president

Stevens: Yes she is. Yes she is. I think she is... I think she’s qualified and I think our people would like to see her become president, vice president.

I’d like to see her become president, as a matter of fact.

You just know I'm saving the best for last, right?

On Iraq, Stevens was asked by the moderator, "Knowing what you know now, do you think that the country of Iraq and Saddam Hussein played a role in the 9/11 attack on the United States?"

(A nobrainer, right? Time to beat a hasty retreat, to admit the jig is up, cut and run and otherwise completely repudiate this horribly illegal and costly war, right? Uh, well...)

Stevens: I know more than you think I know, and I believe they did.OK, it's an isolated peak, right? No one else in the country could possibly adopt such an idiotic position, you would think. You'd be wrong.

2) Joe Fischer and Hunter Bush

And just so we don't forget that the south has incendiary ideas regarding race relations, two University of Kentucky students, Joe Fischer and Hunter (what are the odds?) Bush were arrested on Thursday for burning an effigy of Barack Obama... on campus. Why did they do this? Because someone hung an effigy of Sarah Palin in California. Yeah, that's it.

Here's the thing. The Palin mannequin was part of a Halloween display. One in extremely poor taste, sure, but it resulted in no legal action or arrests and the homeowner voluntarily took it down. Another minor difference is that the effigy in Kentucky was of a black man and was burned, which I'm willing to bet qualifies as a hate crime, which would automatically carry stiffer penalties.

1) Bill O’Reilly

Making the top spot this week is Bill O, for wanting to have Bill Burton arrested for upsetting poor little Megyn Kelly. Who knew that Kelly would be so savaged by that vicious Obama flak, especially since MK called Obama a "socialist"? Who did Burton think he was in pointing out that Fox has a (gasp) partisan agenda?